Experimental Characterisation of the Alginate Gelation Process for Rapid Prototyping (original) (raw)

Hydrogels have received much attention due to their potential use in a wide variety of biomedical applications, including tissue engineering scaffolds, drug delivery, contact lenses, corneal implants and wound dressing. This research work focuses on a new route to produce three-dimensional scaffolds in alginate hydrogels for medical applications, through the use of a biomimetic rapid prototyping system. This system replicates some natural procedures used by some marine brown algae, namely Laminaria Hyperborea, to produce alginate used as a structural component of the algae, in accurate chemical conditions. The biomanufacturing of optimised alginate scaffolds requires the control of the gelation process in order to obtain improved mechanical and biological properties and appropriate surface morphology for cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. This paper investigates the influence of sodium alginate of both sodium alginate and calcium chloride on the gelation kinetics.

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